Known in the art are systems for taking readings of water, gas and electricity meters, which are based on manual reading of the meters. The usual method involves sending an operative to the building to be invoiced, in order to read and note down the figures of the reading.
This method involves a number of disadvantages which are described below.
The fact of having to go to the building in order to take the reading often means having to gain access to private premises or premises to which it is difficult to gain access. In the case of remote zones, the travel costs of the operative have to be added, and these can be estimated approximately, for Spain, at between 30 and 160 pesetas per reading. To all these disadvantages must be added also the possibility of human error by the operative in taking the reading, together with possible error by the personnel processing the information obtained by the operative.
New electronic reading systems are now being introduced to allow the operative to take the meter readings using a portable computer or the like. Although this system reduces considerably the potential reading error by the operative, it does not solve the problems of cost associated with the reading, nor does it permit the frequency of readings to be increased. With the intention of reducing costs, the utilities that take the readings from the meters make estimated readings of consumption, that is, they do not take the reading at the residence of the customer but instead determine approximately the reading of the meter, which is unfair for the customer because later, normally at the end of each year, the payment has to be regularised.
Current systems presently use electronic telemetry emitter systems to send the reading from the meter. The system requires that an operative use a hand-held receiver to “read” the figures transmitted by the meter, which means that the receiver must be within the coverage range of the transmitter. Although the system does solve some of the disadvantages that have existed so far in relation to the classic manual reading, it still presents several limitations:    The reading costs are not reduced greatly, since operatives are still needed to travel and take the reading.    The telemetry systems use narrow-band transmission that can easily suffer interference, and transmission power in the range of tens of watts is required. The system causes ‘band pollution’ with radio-electric noise and hinders mass deployment thereof in densely populated areas.    The system works in one direction only, and so cannot carry out other value-added applications. Document US-A-6069571 discloses a meter data collection device using a RF transceiver, where each meter interface unit (MUI) is connected directly to one base station (BS) over a control channel of a wireless cellular system (AMPS). The system is limited by:            Relies on an already installed communication infrastructure.        Telephone companies charge for data delivered.        Changes in the wireless cellular network technology implies the replacement of the full system because each meter unit interfaces uses a channel of the wireless cellular network (High replacement cost).        High infrastructure cost per meter, because expensive devices (Base Stations, Switch matrix, . . . ) are required to interface with the wireless cellular network.        Base station (BS) coverage limits strongly the number of meters connected, because each MUI should be connected directly to one BS, using just one hop.        Energy consumption is not optimized.        Short battery life, increases the operating cost.        